Learn to cook the base of meals in different cultures. Like a Sofrito.
Most of the best classic dishes in the world really start with three or four ingredients and are just variations. You shouldn’t overthink it or buy rare ingredients. You’re better off picking one and mastering the basic steps. Learning to cook isn’t about learning to recreate a chef-cooked meal. It’s about learning to cook simple, cheap ingredients.
Is it even a life hack, or an essential life skill. Most us didn’t formally learned, but have seen/helped our parents from an early age and one day, we ended up in a student room meaning it was time to cook
When the pandemic happened, there were people who didn’t know how to make the easiest meals. I was shocked. So, my rule on recipes is that nothing is too basic.
Hey that’s a quality life changing hack right here. Food is the most important thing with sleep.
Would you have a list of those base meals maybe ?
@dephyre mentionned refried beans with rice in the thread. @DeltaTangoLima responded with bottled (canned) pasta sauce. I’d say learn how to make ratatouille and store (can) some when you can get the ingredient (green bell pepper, zucchinis, eggplan, tomatoes) at the right time of the year.
It’s usually just to take a small amount of delicious oil or fat — whatever you have on hand — and saute diced onions with diced bell pepper (or local equivalent) until the onions are slightly transparent. Keep going if you want the onions start being brown and have a sweet flavor. That brown is just the natural sugars coming out of the onion and is what “caramelizes” means. Caramel is sugar. And then add garlic and/or ginger and whatever spices you like.
If you want to, add meat. If you don’t, do not. (Often, that very oil step is done from browning meat and not wasting the fat.)
If you want soup, add a lot of liquid and whatever and cook it slowly. If you want paella, jambalaya, jollof, biryani, or equivalent — every culture has a rice dish — use the rice recipe on the bag as if it were water. (Use stock if you have any but water works fine.)
There are dishes that are different. Like fried rice and French Toast use old rice and toast respectively. Baking is a science. But anyone can make a pot of delicious with a few ingredients and it’s a 10 minute, one pot meal.
I started watching Babish & Weissman’s channels on YouTube during the pandemic. Both of them put out easy to follow videos, but they also include links to recipes in the video description, so you don’t have to write it all down.
The Basics with Babish videos are great because they show multiple dishes with a given protein.
Weissman does get a bit snooty & high priced at times. He also gets a lil too juvenile for my taste, but that’s my taste…
With his higher priced dishes, he does typically offer cost cutting options as goes through, which is nice.
I really like that both Babish & Weissman tell you why they’re using certain ingredients. That little bit of why helps me with substitutions if I ever don’t have or don’t like something used.
I just found a japanese comfort food staple: Ochazuke - green tea rice. It just needs a couple of ingredients and is super quick. I was blown away by how good and comforting it was. Its Comfort in a quick bowl. And it’s super adaptable. You can basically add anything as tipping.
Learn to cook the base of meals in different cultures. Like a Sofrito.
Most of the best classic dishes in the world really start with three or four ingredients and are just variations. You shouldn’t overthink it or buy rare ingredients. You’re better off picking one and mastering the basic steps. Learning to cook isn’t about learning to recreate a chef-cooked meal. It’s about learning to cook simple, cheap ingredients.
Is it even a life hack, or an essential life skill. Most us didn’t formally learned, but have seen/helped our parents from an early age and one day, we ended up in a student room meaning it was time to cook
When the pandemic happened, there were people who didn’t know how to make the easiest meals. I was shocked. So, my rule on recipes is that nothing is too basic.
Hey that’s a quality life changing hack right here. Food is the most important thing with sleep.
Would you have a list of those base meals maybe ?
@dephyre mentionned refried beans with rice in the thread. @DeltaTangoLima responded with bottled (canned) pasta sauce. I’d say learn how to make ratatouille and store (can) some when you can get the ingredient (green bell pepper, zucchinis, eggplan, tomatoes) at the right time of the year.
It’s usually just to take a small amount of delicious oil or fat — whatever you have on hand — and saute diced onions with diced bell pepper (or local equivalent) until the onions are slightly transparent. Keep going if you want the onions start being brown and have a sweet flavor. That brown is just the natural sugars coming out of the onion and is what “caramelizes” means. Caramel is sugar. And then add garlic and/or ginger and whatever spices you like.
If you want to, add meat. If you don’t, do not. (Often, that very oil step is done from browning meat and not wasting the fat.)
If you want soup, add a lot of liquid and whatever and cook it slowly. If you want paella, jambalaya, jollof, biryani, or equivalent — every culture has a rice dish — use the rice recipe on the bag as if it were water. (Use stock if you have any but water works fine.)
There are dishes that are different. Like fried rice and French Toast use old rice and toast respectively. Baking is a science. But anyone can make a pot of delicious with a few ingredients and it’s a 10 minute, one pot meal.
This is the way.
You start frying an onion and then figure out what you’re making for dinner.
There’s a book that you should pickup…
Salt Fat Acid Heat by Samin Nosrat
It really covers everything you’ll need to be able to cook anything. They even made a 4 part series about it on Netflix.
I really like this. Do you have any resources I can check out that cover this?
I started watching Babish & Weissman’s channels on YouTube during the pandemic. Both of them put out easy to follow videos, but they also include links to recipes in the video description, so you don’t have to write it all down.
The Basics with Babish videos are great because they show multiple dishes with a given protein.
I watch them both a ton, good stuff. Weissman can be a little snooty tho. K Keni Lopez-Alt is amazing 😍
Weissman does get a bit snooty & high priced at times. He also gets a lil too juvenile for my taste, but that’s my taste…
With his higher priced dishes, he does typically offer cost cutting options as goes through, which is nice.
I really like that both Babish & Weissman tell you why they’re using certain ingredients. That little bit of why helps me with substitutions if I ever don’t have or don’t like something used.
For sure, like some of his stuff is really good
A good example is The Curry Guy. Dan somebody?
Make a huge batch of base curry sauce, and then with a few more ingredients you can make dozens of Indian and Bangladeshi dishes
He’s got loads of recipes on his site, but his book is really useful in a kitchen
I just found a japanese comfort food staple: Ochazuke - green tea rice. It just needs a couple of ingredients and is super quick. I was blown away by how good and comforting it was. Its Comfort in a quick bowl. And it’s super adaptable. You can basically add anything as tipping.
This is the blogpost that inspired me https://rasamalaysia.com/green-tea-rice/